FORM 2
THE PATENTS ACT  1970
(39 OF 1970)
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION
(Section 10  Rule 13)
TITLE
ALL UTILITY BILL PAYMENT SYSTEM
APPLICANT: RMN Infotech Pvt. Ltd.
H.No: 1- 62/1  Plot no. 115  Kavuri Hills 
Phase - 1  Road No: 36  Extn. Jubilee Hills
Hyderabad – 500033  Andhra Pradesh 
India
Nationality : India
THE FOLLOWING SPECIFICATION PARTICULARLY DESCRIBES THE INVENTION AND THE MANNER IN WHICH IT IS TO BE PERFORMED:-
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ALL UTILITY BILL PAYMENT SYSTEM
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention is related to processing payment information. In particular  the present inven-tion pertains to a system that conducts secured transactions over the internet and enables users to tender payment manually (e.g.  tender payment in the form of cash  cheque  credit/ 5 debit card or online payments etc.) for those transactions.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Generally  consumer creditors (e.g.  utility companies  banks  credit card compa-nies  department stores  etc.) periodically send statements to notify customers of account balances and requesting payment. The statement includes a summary of account activity 10 and a payment means stating the amount due to the creditor or owed to the customer. When an amount is due to the creditor  the consumer typically remits payment to the creditor within a reasonable period of time after receiving the creditor statement.
Alternatively  customers may arrange to have payments automatically transferred from a cus-15 tomer""s bank account to a creditor""s account by electronic transfer. This relieves the custom-er from completing and mailing a cheque each billing period  and incurs a savings to the cus-tomer since the customer does not need to purchase stamps to mail payments.
There are  moreover  several prior art systems that facilitate customer payment of bills to 20 creditors. For example  U.S. Pat. No. 5 220 501 (Lawlor et al) discloses a system enabling a customer to communicate with a service provider computer from a remote computer site  preferably the customer""s home  to facilitate bill paying and/or banking functions. The service provider computer accesses the customer bank computer to selectively perform several banking functions (e.g.  account balance inquiries  transfer of funds between accounts  etc.) 25 and pay bills by electronically transferring funds from the customer""s account.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 6 119 106 and 6 611 818 (both to Mersky et al.) disclose a system for facilitat-ing customer payments to creditors from a remote site including computer systems located at respective agent affiliate  service provider  and creditor sites. The service provider or host 30 computer system is in selective communication with the agent and creditor computer sys-tems and processes any transaction information. A customer typically visits an agent affiliate
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site and tenders payment in response to receiving a billing statement from a creditor. An agent operator enters all the customer account information and receives payment  applying it to the designated creditor account balance. The payment transaction is entered into the agent system  which  along with other payment transaction information from the agent site  is maintained in a transaction file. The agent system generates a receipt for the customer at the 5 completion of the transaction. Each agent system transfers a transaction file to the host sys-tem  and the host system processes the transaction files to generate a closeout report and a creditor report for each creditor indicating the payment activity at the agent sites.
With ATM transactions  the consumer is usually limited to making bill payments only to cer-tain entities specified in advance by the bank  and is required to complete a somewhat oner-10 ous registration process for establishing ATM-based bill payment authority or privileges. In addition  a user is not only subjected to severe transaction fees  but also to administrative inefficiencies caused by various billing institutions utilizing different and independent ac-counts to conduct transactions. In addition  both traditional and ATM systems tend to require the use of pre-existing monetary accounts to conduct transactions remotely  thereby limiting 15 manners of facilitating consumer payment and restricting use of the systems to consumers that can establish the required accounts. Many consumers  moreover  prefer human interac-tion  being more comfortable tendering payment to an agent of the billing institution rather than a stand-alone computer system.
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Additionally  the remote payment system of the Mersky patents  though addressing several of the aforementioned drawbacks  requires an operator to enter the pertinent customer ac-count information  increasing the time the operator must spend with each customer  and in-creasing the wait times for customers requiring assistance. In addition  an agent operator  when entering customer information into the agent computer system  is more likely to make 25 mistakes since the information is not familiar to the operator. This  in turn  causes further de-lays in processing the payment. Scanners  though helpful in entering information accurately  are prone to read errors  and have no effectiveness when the customer does not have a bill to scan.
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Furthermore  existing  clerk-only systems (i.e.  those having no kiosk) do not effectively communicate with the creditors to provide payment by a due date. The host or service pro-viders have various contracted arrangements with each creditor  which often have varying fees  crediting  and posting times  as well as cut-off times  all of which are critical to reinitiate
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a particular service (e.g.  electricity  telephone bill etc.) or to prevent a service disconnect. It is becoming increasingly difficult for service providers to effectively communicate these varia-tions in processing to customers.
Kiosk-only (bill collector) systems require a user to dispense cash directly into the kiosk via a 5 cash acceptor. Since each piece of paper currency must be entered individually  the process is time consuming. In addition  cash acceptors are often unreliable  becoming jammed and preventing the use of the kiosk. Along with cash acceptors  such devices further require change generators  requiring the kiosk to store large amounts of cash and additional pro-cessing costs (emptying  counting  and filling the cash within the kiosk). Consequently  ki-10 osks with cash handling are generally expensive  large  are difficult to maintain  and limit the number of transactions that can be taken in a day.
Consequently  there exists a need for a payment system that provides timely (real time) in-formation to a customer and creditors regarding an account  and avoids the problems asso-15 ciated with kiosk (ATM) only systems  and permits tender of payment (e.g.  cash) at a remote site without the inefficiencies caused by the aforementioned processes.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention is related to a system for paying all utility bill payment. The system in accord-20 ance with this invention will facilitate a simpler  more secured  convenient  reliable and easily accessible payment solution avoiding all the day problems faced by the esteemed customers of these utilities.
The system in accordance with this invention facilitates 24 X 7 reliable payment collection 25 services for the customers of utilities without requiring the customers to approach utility’s payment counters and stand in long queues.
The system is highly flexible and reliable where the customers can pay as and when wish to pay for any amount of payment in any kind of payment mode for e.g. cash  cheque  online 30 payments  card (Credit/ debit) or coupons.
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Yet another feature of the present disclosure is to facilitate customer payment to customers from a remote site without requiring the customer to authorize  register for  or pre-arrange the payment transaction with the creditor.
It is another feature of the present disclosure to conduct transactions over a network while 5 maintaining consumer anonymity and privacy.
According to an aspect of the present disclosure  an electronic payment transaction system for enabling customers to pay a plurality of utility services is provided with two-tier architec-ture in which the lowest tier is adapted to host data and typically being a “dedicated data 10 trustee” or Application interface / trustee server; the upper tier typically being a main host ap-plication server adapted to host local database  transactional database and terminals or Ki-osks equipped with respective kiosk health monitoring access tool.
Typically  the system for implementation comprises 15
[I] Main host application server: It is the one which constitutes the upper tier which comprises a local database server  transactional Database engine server and termi-nal outlet which had preloaded data interface.
[II] Application interface / trustee Server: It is the one which constitutes the lower tier to provide web services via the said main host application server. 20
Further  in detail  the local data base server is the kiosk’s database  where in franchisee de-tails and all the data relating to the transactions proceed through the kiosk in saved in its lo-cal database; transactional database engine server is a central repository/ database that stores the transactional information of all the franchises and the kiosk details  whenever a 25 transaction is processed in a kiosk  the data is first stored in its local database and further this data is then sent to the transactional database through a secured channel; kiosk terminal equipped with respective kiosk health monitoring access tool which is hosted in the main host application server  where it monitors the incoming pulses from all the kiosks every mi-nute and if any kiosk fails to send the pulse  then the monitoring tool will raise the red alert 30 flag to administrator to take action  further the application interface / trustee server provides API’s and web services that the main host application server unit get the user’s payment in-formation  process the transactions and receiving payment confirmation  where all the com-munications takes place through a secure channel.
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Typically  the components used are adapted to run independent of each other in a dedicated manner so that failure or fault in a particular component process does not affect the running or any other component.
Typically  the system facilitates payment of various utility bill / bills related to government  all 5 credit card payments  travel  insurance and etc.
It is still a further feature of the present disclosure to facilitate tender of payment manually (e.g.  tender of payment in the form of cash  cheque  credit/debit card  online payments etc.) for transactions conducted over a network. 10
Typically  the system includes means for maintaining the security of the system as herein described  including maintaining of transaction logs of every transaction within the system.
It is another feature of the present disclosure to conduct transactions over a network while 15 maintaining consumer anonymity and privacy.
The aforesaid features are achieved individually and/or in combination  and it is not intended that the present disclosure be construed as requiring two or more of the features to be com-bined unless expressly required by the claims attached hereto. 20
The above summary relates to only one of the many embodiments of the invention disclosed herein and is not intended to limit the scope of the invention  which is set forth in the claims herein. These and other features of the present invention will be described in more detail be-low in the detailed description of the invention and in conjunction with the following figures. 25
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The present invention is illustrated by way of example and not by way of limitation  in the fig-ures of the accompanying drawings and in which like reference numerals refer to similar el-ements and in which: 30
FIG. 1 shows in accordance with the present invention  the various basic components of the system arranged in a two-tier architecture.
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FIG. 2 shows in accordance with the present invention  is a view in perspective of an exem-plary kiosk device.
FIG.3 shows in accordance with the present invention  network architecture involved as de-scribed in FIG.1 5
FIG. 4 shows  in accordance with the present invention  describes a process flow chart of the user transaction.
FIG.5 shows  in accordance with the present invention  describes a snap shot depicting the 10 user interface available at the kiosk/ terminal
DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The present invention will now be described in detail with reference to a few embodiments thereof as illustrated in the accompanying drawings. In the following description  numerous 15 specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present in-vention. It will be apparent  however  to one skilled in the art  that the present invention may be practiced without some or all of these entire specific details. In other instances  well known process steps and/or structures have not been described in detail in order to not nec-essarily obscure the present invention. 20
Further  various operations will be described as multiple discrete operations  in turn  in a manner that is most helpful in understanding the illustrative embodiments; however  the or-der of description should not be construed as to imply that these operations are necessarily order dependent. In particular  these operations need not be performed in the order of 25 presentation. .
The following description of the preferred embodiment(s) is merely exemplary in nature and is in no way intended to limit the invention  its application  or uses.
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The features and advantages of the invention may be better understood with reference to the figures and discussions that follow. FIG. 1 shows  in accordance with the present invention  illustrates the various basic components of the system 100 arranged in two-tier architecture  wherein the said system enables customers to pay a plurality of utility services is provided
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with two-tier architecture in which the lowest tier is adapted to host data and typically being a “dedicated data trustee” or Application interface / trustee server 101; the upper tier typically being a “main host application” server 102 adapted to host local database  transactional da-tabase and terminals or Kiosks 103 equipped with respective kiosk health monitoring access tool. 5
Typically  the system for implementation comprises
[I] Main host application server: It is the one which constitutes the upper tier which comprises a local database server  transactional Database engine server and termi-nal outlet which had preloaded data interface. 10
[II] Application interface / trustee Server: It is the one which constitutes the lower tier to provide web services via the said main host application server.
Further  in detail  the local data base server 104 is the kiosk’s database  where in franchisee details and all the data relating to the transactions proceed through the kiosk in saved in its 15 local database; transactional database engine server 105 is a central repository/ database that stores the transactional information of all the franchises and the kiosk details  whenever a transaction is processed in a kiosk  the data is first stored in its local database and further this data is then sent to the transactional database through a secured channel; kiosk terminal equipped with respective kiosk health monitoring access tool which is hosted in the main 20 host application server  where it monitors the incoming pulses from all the kiosks every mi-nute and if any kiosk fails to send the pulse  then the monitoring tool will raise the red alert flag to administrator to take action  further the application interface / trustee server provides API’s and web services that the main host application server unit get the user’s payment in-formation  process the transactions and receiving payment confirmation  where all the com-25 munications takes place through a secure channel.
In order to achieve a high level abstraction of various operational and non-operational issues the nature of the system architecture is highly secured  at various system component level  scalable  distributed. 30
Typically  the system arranges for payment to creditors such as utility (i.e.  electric  gas  tele-phone  etc.) or other company sites  and receives processed customer payment transaction information. Finally  the main host application server 102 connects the application interface / trustee server 101 or creditor’s individual sites and any communication media may be utilized 35
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to connect the system 100 with the application interface / trustee sites. By way of example  the communication medium may include  DSL connection  cable modem connection  dial-up connection (phone lines)  wireless connection (e.g.  satellite)  and combinations thereof. In-formation can be sent using transmission methods including  but not limited to  CIE or CTX file format; EDI transmission; MasterCard""s RPS process; via a secure FTP; two-way SSL 5 communication over HTTPS or combinations thereof.
The kiosk device 103 (also called a creditor transaction device) is an unattended electronic device capable of receiving input information and generating output information  as well as processing creditor payment information and transactions. Specifically  the kiosk device may 10 be linked to the application interface / trustee server  being capable of selectively receiving and/or transmitting information from the main host application server. The kiosk 103 may be directly wired to the main host application server  or may communicate wirelessly with the main host application server. In addition  the kiosk 103 may be adapted to communicate (wired or wirelessly) with the application interface / trustee server or creditor’s individual sites 15 (i.e.  the kiosk uploads and downloads information to/from both the application interface / trustee server and the main host application server). The kiosk 103 is typically a stand-alone device (similar to an ATM device) with software con-figured to carry out payment transactions. The kiosk 103 may include (1) a display screen; 20 (2) an input device such as a keyboard  a keypad  a trackball  a touch screen  or a voice command unit; (3) a printer; (4) cash acceptor; (5) a scanner (e.g.  a card scanner  cheque scanner)  (6) a video camera and (7) an optional microphone. FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary kiosk device according to an embodiment of the disclosure. As shown  the kiosk device 103 may include an enclosure  a data display (e.g.  a surface acoustic wave (SAW) or an LCD 25 touch screen)  a magnetic card (or other suitable) reader  a smart card reader  a printed tick-et exit  an optical reader (e.g.  a barcode reader)  and/or a speaker  wherein the video cam-era provides a photograph of the customer.
FIG.3 describes the network architecture involved in setting up the system 100. The network 30 architecture comprises main components such as gateway router which is typically provided by the Internet Service Provider; a fortiGate Router which is typically a local router that pro-vides Internet services to Local Area Network; a firewall which is typically used to create poli-cies for server and internet traffic; a layer 3 Switch which is typically used for Routing of dif-ferent networks and for VLAN Switching; a LAN Switch which is typically is a network device 35
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used for connecting computers; a VMware HA which is typically provides high availability to the application running in virtual machine; the main host application servers which is typically two servers form failover cluster. If one server fails then another server begins to provide service. Thus increasing the availability of servers and minimizing the disruption in services; a storage Server (IP SAN) which is typically IP SAN is primarily used to make storage devic-5 es  such as disk arrays  tape libraries  and optical jukeboxes  accessible to servers so that the devices appear like locally attached devices to the operating system. A SAN typically has its own network of storage devices that are generally not accessible through the local area network by other devices.
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FIG. 4 describes a procedural flow chart illustrating user transaction performed at the Kiosk or terminal 103 according with the present invention. User selects the desired service (Step 201)  then the user is directed to the selected service user interface (Step 202)  then the user enters input fields depending on the service selected (Step 203)  then the user gets the re-sponse about the details of the account and the amount to be paid depending on the service 15 selected (Step 204)  then the system prompts the user to select payment mode (Step 205)  based on the type of mode selection further steps are executed respectively. For example if user the selects the type of payment as Card payment (Step 206)  then the system prompts the user to swipe the card and then once user swipes the card in the card reader slot  then the card reader verifies the validity of the card and then the system prompts to enter the 20 amount and security code and when the user enters the details then the system prompts the user to confirm payment (Step 209). In case the user selects the type of payment as cash payment (Step 207)  then the system prompts the user to deposit cash and then the user in-serts currency notes through the cash acceptor slot and then the cash acceptor validates the inserted currency note and after verification then the system prompts the user to confirm 25 payment (Step 209). In case the user selects the type of payment as Cheque payment (Step 208)  then the system prompts the user to deposit the cheque and the user inserts the cheque through the cheque scanner slot and then the cheque scanner slot scans and reads the cheque and then the system prompts the user to enter the payment amount and the user enters the amount and then the system prompts the user to confirm the payment (Step 209). 30 Further the user clicks confirm payment (Step 210) and then the payment details are sent to the respective service provider over secured network (Step 211) and then the system gets the response received where the payment is successful (Step 212) and then the payment confirmation receipt is printed to the user for reference. (Step 213)
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FIG.5 shows  in accordance with the present invention  describes a snap shot depicting the user interface available at the kiosk/ terminal  wherein the customer will get to see on the ki-osk’s welcome screen  where the type of services can be selected from the group of various utility bill / bills related to government  all credit card payments  travel  insurance and etc.
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It will be appreciated that the embodiments described above and illustrated in the drawings represent only a few of the many way of implementing the customer payment system of the present disclosure. For example  the kiosk 103  in addition to communicating with the main host application server 102  may also communicate directly with the application interface / trustee server 101. In addition  the transaction information may be transmitted (upload-10 ed/downloaded) from one computer system (creditor  trustee  and host) to another at any time throughout the process. In certain configurations  the kiosk device 103 may transmit and access information directly from the creditor computer system. Similarly  information may be stored in any of the kiosk device 103  the application interface / trustee server 101  and/or the main host application server 102. 15 The time at which the transaction is transmitted is not particularly limited  and can be trans-mitted at any point during the payment transaction. For example  date may be transmitted in real time. In addition  date may be transmitted at predetermined intervals (e.g.  on an hourly or daily basis)  sending updates as warranted. 20
Additionally  the number of bills paid during a transaction is not limited. That is  the customer can tender payment for multiple bills during a single transaction. Similarly  during a kiosk in-teraction  the customer could designate payment to more than one creditor. The kiosk device 103 may tabulate the entire amount owed to various creditors  indicating a total amount due 25 to the trustee operator. The method of payment  though typically cash  may also include cheque  money order  credit/ debit cards  etc. Additionally  the customer may include an electronic debit account with the trustee  wherein the account is deducted automatically by designation of the customer. 30 The computer systems may be implemented by any type of computer system (e.g.  personal computer  mini or microcomputer  microprocessor  main frame  etc.) or processor and moni-tor capable of processing and communicating transaction information. Further  the host sys-tem may be implemented by a mainframe having terminals located at the trustee sites wherein the mainframe does all the processing of payment information on-line as the infor-35
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mation is entered at the terminals  the processing being carried out in substantially the same manner described above. The creditor computer systems may also be mainframe computers utilized by the creditor to process customer accounts wherein the creditor reports may be sent to the mainframe from the host system for automatic updating of customer accounts. Alternatively  the creditor computer system may be a personal or other computer system for 5 receiving the creditor report from the host system  wherein the receiving computer may either transmit the report to a creditor processing system for updating customer accounts  or print the report for data entry into the creditor processing system. The computer system screens may be arranged in any fashion and contain any desired information. Further  the screens may be implemented by windows  graphical user interfaces  line prompting  or any other data 10 entry and display techniques. Moreover  any keystroke or input device may be utilized to ini-tiate the various screen functions (e.g.  mouse  voice  etc.). Communications between the computer systems may be accomplished by any techniques capable of transmission and re-ception of the transaction information. The creditor reports may be sent to the creditor from the service provider site via the creditor and host computer systems or any other transport 15 method  such as facsimile (e.g.  host system to facsimile or faxing a hard copy of the report)  or mailing or transporting hardcopy of the report to the creditor. The software for the present disclosure may be implemented in any of a number of computer programming languages. It is to be understood that one of ordinary skill in the computer arts 20 can develop the software based on the foregoing description and flow charts. The application interface / trustee servers may employ any type of scanner for reading infor-mation directly from a billing statement or other form wherein the creditor billing statements or other forms may be printed or encoded in any manner capable of being read by any type 25 of scanner utilized by the trustee system for system data entry. The transaction information may be stored in a database  file  data structure or any other software construct capable of maintaining transaction information. From the foregoing description it will be appreciated that disclosure makes available a novel 30 method and apparatus for facilitating customer payments to creditors from a remote site wherein the system facilitates customer payments in any payment form (e.g.  cash  cheque  credit /debit card  online payment etc.) to various creditors from a local remote site  prefera-bly a retail establishment  by interacting with a service provider to inform the creditor of the customer payments at the remote site and enable the creditor to update corresponding cus-35
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tomer accounts. Having described preferred embodiments of a new and improved method and apparatus for facilitating customer payments to creditors from a remote site  it is believed that other modifi-cations  variations  and changes will be suggested to those skilled in the art in view of the 5 teachings set forth herein. It is therefore to be understood that all such variations  modifica-tions  and changes are believed to fall within the scope of the present disclosure as defined in the appended claims.
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CLAIMS
I/ We claim:
1. A payment transaction system for enabling customers to pay a plurality of creditors comprising: a main host application server operable to process payment with com-5 munication with at least one application interface/ trustee server and a kiosk or termi-nal; the kiosk being programmed to receive payment information  from a customer  pertaining to payments to a plurality of creditors and the main host application server disposed at a service provider site remote from the application interface/ trustee site and adapted to communicate with the kiosk  wherein the main host application server 10 receives the payment information from the kiosk.
2. The payment transaction system of claim 1  wherein the kiosk communicates with creditor for each of the plurality of creditors and transmits the payment information therebetween. 15
3. The payment transaction system of claim 1  wherein the main host application server includes a storage to store records corresponding to at least one of the payment transaction file for each of the customer.
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4. The payment transaction system of claim 1  wherein said main host application server comprises a local database server  transactional database engine server  where a transaction logs for every transaction within the system.
5. The payment transaction system of claim 1  wherein said application interface/ trus-25 tee server provides API’s and web services that the main host application server unit get the user’s payment information  process the transactions and receiving payment confirmation  where all the communications takes place through a secure channel.
6. The payment transaction system of claim 1  wherein the payment is selected from the 30 group consisting of cash  cheque  credit /debit card  online payment or any such simi-lar payment gateways.
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7. The payment transaction system of claim 1  wherein the system includes a kiosk health monitoring tool for generating reports to provide structured information regard-ing the various activities of the system.
8. The payment transaction system of claim 1  wherein the kiosk further include (a) a 5 display screen; (b) an input device such as a touch screen  a keyboard  a keypad  a trackball or a voice command unit; (c) a printer; (d) cash acceptor  (e) a scanner (e.g.  a card scanner  cheque scanner)   a video camera  a microphone  a magnetic card (or other suitable) reader  a smart card reader  a printed ticket exit  an optical reader (e.g.  a barcode reader)  and/or a speaker. 10
9. The payment transaction system of claim 1  wherein the kiosk further includes a payment receipt generator to selectively generate at least one printed receipt in re-sponse to the payments to the plurality of creditors.
Dated this 4th day of July 2012
ABSTRACT
The present invention relates to a payment transaction system for enabling customers to pay a plurality of creditors comprising: a main host application server operable to process pay-ment with communication with at least one application interface/ trustee server and a kiosk or 5 terminal; the kiosk being programmed to receive payment information  from a customer  per-taining to payments to a plurality of creditors and the main host application server disposed at a service provider site remote from the application interface/ trustee site and adapted to communicate with the kiosk  wherein the main host application server receives the payment information from the kiosk.